understanding value

If you asked any baseball fan on the planet who is a better hitter Carlos Pena or Albert Pujols. You are first going to be looked at very funny and if he/she cares to answer they are going to say Pujols every time. Now if you ask a fantasy Baseball GM they will say, it depends.

It depends? Yes you read that correctly ladies and gentleman. It does in fact depend in Fantasy and even depends changes with each and every fantasy format. In a standard snake, its still Pujols pretty much every time, same goes for a standard keeper league. But as auction drafts and contract salary keeper leagues continue to grow. So must we as fantasy GM’s.

Last year Albert Pujols was amongst the top 3 in nearly every snake draft in the world. Carlos Pena , well he was taking real late, if at all in snake drafts and for good reason (he was suppose to start in triple a for god sake). The same was similar for Albert Pujols in auction drafts as he was amongst the highest paid and vice versa for Pena. Now lets say you have a fixed budget on draft day of $300 fantasy dollars. Albert probably cost you between 45-75 dollars. His production and trends merit a high price tag like this, but just how well does a player have to perform to make up for absorbing about twenty percent of your whole payroll? Well lets just say short of .330/45/120/120 it is not happening. So how does one succeed then in these auction formats if even the best of the best can not justify there salary. That my friends brings us to value.

The reason I used this extreme example with Carlos Pena was for the exact thing he did last year. He finally burst on the scene and became the monster we thought he could be(46/121/99) some fantasy owners got Pena very cheap on draft day or in the very, very late rounds of a snake. Other probably even got him off waivers and it cost them next to nothing. Now there was no way of knowing he was going to put up the numbers he did. But what was the potential risk vs. reward? What was the immediate value and potential value of Pena? The answer is very minimal in terms of cost. Imagine he only put up half the numbers he did, maybe he only hits 25 homers and drives in 85. Well for the waiver claim, or $2 to $3 dollars it cost you, you are still getting incredible value for him.

The same goes for the rest of your draft and supplementing your star core that often ties up a lot of your payroll on draft day. Another way to look at it is like this. Lets say you are going to take $200 of your $300 draft day dollars and draft a top tier 1b, 3b, SS, OF and SP. You therefore have set aside an avg of $40 dollars per player. This method can be very successful if you can supplement the rest of your draft with solid value. Three tricks to help with this method are
1-setting a ceiling for yourself: if you set a certain ceiling in an auction draft for a cut off point on certain players you will do well as you can budget ahead of time and let the pieces fall as they may.

2-adjusting to the market: this maybe the toughest thing to do, but if you can do it you wlll go very far. No matter how many pre-draft cheat sheets you look at, or how many projections you do. You can never plan exactly how other owners will both value players and spend there money. If you go in expecting certain players and/or positions to go for a certain price and notice that they are either going extremely over or under adjust and take advantage. EX: you have Miguel Cabrera ceiling at $45 yet A-Rod goes for $40 and David Wright goes for $37, it is probably safe to say you can lower you ceiling on Cabrera by at least $8. Drafts can often go in the other direction as well, so just be mindful.

3-draft Tiers first, Names second-This one sounds so simple in theory, yet on draft day most simply over spend or draft to early a round because of a name. If you put Matt Holiday and Vladimir Guerro in the same tear then set the same ceiling and bid accordingly. Do not pay 10 more dollars because Vlad is Vlad!

The core concept behind this post is to really have an understanding that the best player is not always the best pick. We have to always be mindful as fantasy GM’s that we are running a team first. Sure it is fun to have two to three all stars who put up godly stats. But is it enough to win if you surround them with a bunch of no name under achievers? So remember spend wisely and pick accordingly with one eye on the present and one on the rest of the draft.